


sun will come (we will find our way home)

by MissSpock



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Catharsis Ending, Developing Friendships, Families of Choice, Feels, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Star Trek: Into Darkness, Road Trips, Sorry Not Sorry, Spock and Bones have to bond after Jim uh, Team as Family, The tribble stayed dead, Triumvirate, Triumvirate Feels, Well - Freeform, spirk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-09 15:10:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13484121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissSpock/pseuds/MissSpock
Summary: He looks around him, at the dew in the freshly mowed grass and the geometric high-rises cutting through the sunlight on the horizon line, and thinks, god, this is what Jim dies for.(Or, the triangle is missing a leg.)





	sun will come (we will find our way home)

**Author's Note:**

> this is the first fic i've finished in a y e a r and the ending is rushed but shhh. validate me.
> 
> title from...you guessed it, "carry on" by fun.

The tribble that sits on his desk never moves.

The green-blooded hobgoblin beats Khan within an inch of his life and Bones is glad, Hippocratic Oath be damned.

 

 

*

 

 

The funeral is everything the little shit would hate.

They mount a fucking statue, for god’s sake. The son goes to join the father in immortalized, marble glory, and there’s talk of a new building named after them to be constructed in the future. Classic Federation music plays in the background while men twice Jim’s age in immaculately pressed uniforms give tear-inducing speeches about the Kelvin baby, about the golden boy of Starfleet and his noble sacrifice, even though they all know James Tiberius Kirk was actually a pain in the ass and none of them have ever given a flying fuck about him before except to make sure they aren’t assigned to oversee his missions.

 _Serves you right_ , Bones thinks vehemently, with all the force of a starship hurtling toward the earth as he glares with red, stinging eyes at the Federation flag, creased at the corner and draped neatly over the glossy black box. _Fuck you. That's what you get for being an asshole_.

There is only the silence in the wake of that thought. Only the music, and the shutter of the cameras as the press frames their shots.  The lack of a witty quip makes him physically sick.

The bugle sounds and they salute in their lines as the casket is lowered into the ground, like gilded dolls. He doesn’t cry. The others don’t either, save for the odd ensign or too, clinging on in groups. Too many admirals come up to them to offer their condolences, fiddling pretentiously with the handkerchiefs in their jacket pockets, and then these higher-ups go inside to contemplate their liquor and crumpets, brush off the boy whose name will never be forgotten because Starfleet only allows for the existence of heroes, not people.

Khan’s trial is in a week. Admiral Marcus is given a posthumous medal for extraordinary bullshit, and the whole incident was covered up.

He looks around him, at the dew in the freshly mowed grass and the geometric high-rises cutting through the sunlight on the horizon line, and thinks, god, this is what Jim dies for.

 

*

 

Spock goes to find his father on New Vulcan. Uhura requests a two week leave to spend with her family. Scotty buries himself in the belly of the Enterprise. He doesn’t touch the ship, only sits, and drinks, and stares.

Jocelyn calls.

They didn’t separate on good terms, but she’s engaged again and hates him a little less for it. Johanna sounds like herself on the other end of the receiver. He asks her about school and makes her promise to send him all the sloppy crayon drawings he’s missed.

When they hang up, he sits alone in a top floor San Francisco apartment with liquor on the shelf and lights on the glass. If he squints, the fluorescence pouring in through the window burns just like stars.

The planet below hums with life, vapid, vast, and unending. Funny how he’s been grousing about the tin can ever since he’s been on it, and yet he’s never really thought of what he’d do if he ever returns planet-side. There’s too much space, here, too much air and too much gravity. He feels heavier than he’s ever been, wearier than the first time he steps onto a shuttle and declares to himself and the world that all he has left is a set of bones.

But he doesn’t even have that anymore.

 

*

 

Does the tribble move? Is it a trick of the light?

(No. No it doesn’t.)

(Christine stabs a hypospray in his arm, and he’s almost thankful at how immediately dizzy he becomes. Between falling asleep and staying awake he thinks he’s running, racing down to Engineering, willing his legs to go faster because it’s going to be the last time - the last time - )

(It’s the third night he sits in the lab all night, staring.)

 

*

 

_(Dr. Leonard H. McCoy will never be “Bones” again.)_

 

*

 

He goes to New Vulcan.

Sarek says nothing, merely points him in the right direction.

“Spock.” he says, and under the weight of the dark-eyed gaze, he doesn’t know if he feels stupid or righteously angry.

Spock raises an immaculate eyebrow. “What are you doing here, Doctor?”

He can never stand the hobgoblin.

“Ensign Kim. Ensign Holloway. Lieutenant Roseau.” He swallows the lump in his throat instead, and tries not to think about how Jim would’ve known, what Jim would’ve done. “Captain James Kirk. The other hundreds of men and women that died on the mission. Their families are your _responsibility_ as acting captain.”

Spock hears it for what it is – an accusation. The crease between the straight, tilted brows deepens imperceptibly.

The Vulcan’s shoulders rise and fall. Rise and fall.

He is alive, and Jim is not. A part of Bones is hyper-aware of that.

“…Very well, Doctor.”

Somehow the concession is a hollow victory.

They return planet-side on a shuttle full of stoic Vulcans, who stare with dark eyes wide with alarm as Bones pretends he doesn’t notice Spock gripping the armrests of his seat until his knuckles turn white.

Spock pretends he doesn’t notice the way Bones’ face crumples, the way he gasps for air over his knees, when the shuttle shudders into descent. They drift through the atmosphere and if he just closes his eyes, god, it’s like they’re falling again.

 

*

 

They rent a car.

Spock points out, rather logically, that it would have been more efficient to take a shuttle, but Bones gives him a pointed look, and he presses his lips into a thin line. They rent the damn car, and when they pull onto the road it is dawn.

Bones sits behind the wheel. Spock gazes blankly out the window.

The radio is off. Neither speak.

In the silence there is something off-putting and absent. The puzzle is disjointed, the pieces jarring, missing and cracked.

Nothing fits quite the way it used to.

 

*

 

When they arrive, Anne Kim greets them in her nightgown,  her four-year-old daughter trailing behind. Her face is pale when Bones delivers the news, but she musters stoicism through her tears for her daughter. They pretend not to hear the sobs when the door closes behind her and she thanks them in the hallway.

The Holloway family gather in the sitting room as their great-grandmama explains. The children cry but are hushed quickly. Grandmama says it’s an honor, and asks them to stay for tea. Spock and Bones decline. There are still people they need to see.

(They don’t get to Lt. Rousseau’s father in time - he dies in the hospital a day before they arrive.)

They drive on, doing what needs to be done in place of the person who would have done it, because they are the best he leaves behind.

The price they have to pay - to be left behind.

 

*

 

Jim isn’t kidding when he says that all of Iowa is covered with corn.

When they pull away from the endless field, it is late, and when they knock on the door of the old barn, a woman comes out. She is a middle-aged woman with a stern face and sparkling eyes, and she is all the things that her son is and isn’t, at the same time.

Winona Kirk is somehow everything Bones expects her to be, and nothing like how he imagines. He hears the stories of course – Jim hasn’t always been fond of his mother, but Bones thinks he may have been fair in his description at least.

When they tell her about him, she looks momentarily shocked - and Bones is afraid of what he’s going to see on her face. He tells her that Jim dies a hero, knows, with the horrible weight of familiarity, that it’s not enough. Three hundred people are not enough. San Francisco is not enough.

The whispering, traitorous thought sits heavy on his chest - they don’t deserve Jim.

But then she smiles.

Slow and sad, but despite the tears in her eyes she grins, bright and shit-eating, like how Jim used to do. “Damn that kid. Like father like son. Why are all the men in my life such heroic idiots?”

Her voice is thick in her throat, but she _smiles_ \- the way Jim did, at the academy, when he threw himself in the chair -

_Through the glass._

Spock looks lost.

“Would you like to come in?”

They do, and when Winona Kirk asks them to stay a while, they do, because neither of them have ever been able to deny Jim Kirk anything, and Jim - he had Winona’s eyes.

  


*

 

He dreams that the tribble moves.

And then he wakes up in Sam Kirk’s old bed on the second floor of a barn and he bursts into tears.

(In another world it does. In another world Jim Kirk doesn’t die and the world is right, not desaturated and unfamiliar. But this is the only world he knows, the only reality he has.)

Heavy footfalls can be heard in the hall, and the door is thrown open, and then Spock is standing in the doorway.

He says nothing.

Spock says nothing.

And, Bones thinks bitterly, of course. How can the robotic bastard understand grief?

But Spock produces a holo-emitter, stares at it as it shines, silver and glittering, under the moonlight.

Then, finally. “The ambassador gave this to me.”

The ambassador. The other Spock.

Bones waits.

“He told me that it was not the Captain who had gone into the engine room. In his universe.” Spock says gently. His fingertips around the activation button are light and reverent, almost like a caress. He doesn’t look at Bones - cannot look at him. “I must offer my apologies - in advance.”

He touches the button.

This is how it begins.

 

*

 

“ _I suppose I’d always imagined us outgrowing Starfleet together. Watching life swing us into our Emeritus years. I look around at the new cadets now and can’t help thinking - has it really been so long? Wasn’t it only yesterday that we stepped onto the Enterprise as boys?”_

 

*

 

He stops dreaming in tribbles and false hopes. In another universe Jim Kirk lives, but the solution isn’t tribbles or supermen.

His Jim Kirk isn’t coming back. There isn’t a magic spell to save everyone this time.  

It somehow circles back to the beginning. Leave is short - there’s always something to be done. Starfleet Medical wants him back as their resident expert on Khan’s blood. Spock is wanted for further debriefing.

He toys with the idea of blowing the admiralty off and going to Georgia. Bones hasn’t seen Johanna, and he isn’t keen to be on another ship, shuttle, or anything that flies, any time soon.

“Do you plan to resign your position, Doctor?” Spock asks then, with a crinkled brow.

“I don’t know,” Bones answers honestly, with the slightest hint of irritation. It’s snowing as he looks over the field, stretching out from the barn, and he feels warm, too warm, standing in the cold.

He doesn’t have any answers - and he doesn’t look at Spock, because whenever he does,  he can only see the negative space.

(And it’s not fair to the green-blooded hobgoblin, he knows. He hates it, and he hates him and he hates himself.)

“It would be illogical to do such a thing because of the captain’s death,” Spock frowns. “There is no reason – “

“I need time.”

Spock looks at him for an uncomfortable stretch of time. And then he frowns, as if he understands, as if he can possibly understand. “You have done nothing wrong.”

Bones takes a deep breath and takes his balled fists out of his pockets.

(But he can’t help it.)

  


*

 

 _“You once said being a  starship captain was my first, best  destiny… if that’s true, then yours is_ _to be by my side.”_

 

*

 

“He died for _us_ you pointy-eared _bastard_ \- “

“Doctor, that does not - “

“If you’d shut the _fuck up and listen for once in your life - “_

“You have a duty to the Enterprise - “

“To hell with duty, you emotionless - “

“Doctor, if you could just think rationally - “

_“It should have been you!”_

He pulls his arm back and before he knows it his fist collides with an angular cheek.

(Spock lies, flat on his back, in the field. )

Bones watches his chest rise and fall. Rise and fall.

He grabs Spock by the collar and his voice is choked with tears, choked with words he hates and doesn’t quite mean, but can’t quite stop himself from saying. “It should’ve been you.”

Spock breathes. He breathes until the pain on his face smooths out, until he can be impeccable and emotionless and _false_ again.

(It almost hurts to watch).

“I know,” the hobgoblin says, voice barely a whisper.

 

*

 

They say their goodbyes in the morning.

Winona looks from one side of the table to the other, and sighs.

Bones does not look at Spock. Spock does not look at Bones.

They are not what they are before. A triangle cannot stand on two legs.

(Winona thinks, fondly, as she watches the car pull out onto the road, _These are the idiot boys my son has chosen.)_

 

*

 

_“If there’s any true logic to the universe, we’ll end up on that bridge again someday.”_

 

*

 

Spock nurses the bruise, pale green, as he looks into the faded horizon out the window, and says, soft and perhaps just a touch sad: “I think I may have loved him.”

Bones puts his head in his hands and admits, tear streaks on his face, “I think we may have killed him.”

They look at each other and understand, for the first time, that they are one and the same. They both loved the man who fit seamlessly into the cracks between them, the one who was golden and gorgeous, like starlight.

(Even from beyond the grave, Jim Kirk is the glue that holds the Enterprise together.)

Love and guilt suspend in the solution, suddenly sparkling clear. Yes, Jim is dead. Yes, he chooses to die, and it’s because of them.

But this.

This is _how_ he dies: lovingly, loved -

Because he loves.

( _The ta’al_ , Spock explains. _Live long and prosper._ Jim’s last words.

Bones says, softly, “That _bastard_ ,” rolls the window down and yells it at the mountains. The wind laughs back. His tears blow out into the night like the lights do at warp.)

In the end, it is Spock who takes over the wheel in the last stretch home. Outside the window, the mountains stretch into the sky and the stars watch, silent, waiting.

This is the price, to be left behind, Bones thinks.

To smile harder and to cry louder and to love deeper than they ever have before. This is the price they have to pay in return for the love that is given to them.

The hardest, most painful price - to live.

 

*

 

 _“_ _Admit it, Spock. For people like us, the journey itself...is home._ _”_

 

*

 

“I punched Spock in the face,” Bones opens gruffly, “It was awesome.”

“The Doctor has an excellent uppercut,” Spock concedes. He’s still sporting the giant green bruise on the side of his jaw that makes Bones half-proud, half-concerned. Really, he ought to read more about the hob-goblin’s recovery rate.

They stand shoulder to shoulder in the grass in front of the slab of stone.

Bones clears his throat as he bends to lay the bouquet against the stone. “Johanna drew something for you. The flowers were Jocelyn’s idea. She might be a bitch, but I guess she knows more about this sort of stuff.”

“The Doctor believes it ought to keep you company,” Spock starts, “Though I find the idea illogical, I concede his point. The Enterprise and her crew are embarking on the five year mission.”

“Spock was an idiot and didn’t want to take it. Because it, uh…” Bones sniffs, and smiled. “Because the hobgoblin thought it’d be different. Without you.”

“The Doctor set me straight,” Spock acknowledges softly.

“Damn right I did.”

They stand together, shoulder to shoulder, for a long time, amidst the green grass and the geometric high-rises. On the horizon, the sun rises over the city, glimmering with light and love and life, and if you squint hard enough, you can almost make out a third figure – the edge of a command gold shirt, mischievous eyes blue and glowing like stars, boisterous laughter howling, dancing along the coastline.

 

*

 

Bones asks Chekhov to rig a ship-wide channel. Beastie Boys blast through the speakers as the ship launches into warp drive.

Standing beside the captain’s chair, Spock cracks a smile.  


 

 

**Author's Note:**

> pls comment if u like it~  
> if ur from iowa i apologize abt the corn.  
> and don't throw eggs at me pls....i love jim kirk ok he's my Ultimate Fave but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do  
> also the quotes in italics is an excerpt that was originally supposed to go in Star Trek 2009, where Shatner reprises his role as Kirk in a holovid. here if u want uneditted source - https://trekmovie.com/2009/11/23/read-the-star-trek-2009-scene-written-for-william-shatner/


End file.
